


The Wastelanders

by TheCapable22



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Graphic descriptions of violence, Guilt like woah, Harry and co. are too nosy for their own good, Life After the Apocalypse, Lots of Angst, Mentions of Non-Con (past), This story is now on Wattpad, Toast hates pity, i promise :), living in the Wasteland, lots of cars, so do the other Sisters, there's a happy ending to this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-08-30 10:51:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8530219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCapable22/pseuds/TheCapable22
Summary: It's been several months since Furiosa defeated the Immortan Joe and liberated the Citadel. However, she becomes concerned at the lack of the Sisters' education in magic, and is desperate to find a solution. Luckily, childhood memories may lead Furiosa back to her place of origin . . ."What are you doing?"        "Praying.""To who?"         "Anyone who's listening . . ."





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, it's nice to meet y'all!  
> For those of you who don't know me (none of you do), my name is Capable (my real name is Catherine, but after I saw Fury Road, I loved the nickname, so I took it up as a pseudonym, cut me some slack) and I LOVE to write! I hope you enjoy my little story here, I promise that there is MUCH more to come, but I'm in high school, so things are a bit hectic. Don't forget to review, I love the feedback! Anyway, enjoy the story!
> 
> See y'all later! ;)
> 
> Capable

Prologue

It was a beautiful starry night at the Citadel, the Milky Way stretched its way across the sky, a magnificent stream of light composed of billions of stars.

Furiosa sighs, she can't even appreciate the beauty of the constellation, her mind is plagued by troubling thoughts.

Toast the Knowing stands beside her, watching her with concern etched into her profile as Furiosa stews over her thoughts.

"You gonna be okay?" Toast asks in earnest, her eyes alight with genuine concern.

Furiosa looks at the shorter young woman beside her, her expression pensive.

"I'll be alright, Toast, there's no need to worry about me." Furiosa assures her.

"Fine, then. But you can at least tell me what's bothering you. Is it the issue with the trading system again?" Toast implored, starting to get annoyed by Furiosa's cryptic way of speaking, though desperate to alleviate her stresses; she already had so much on her mind.

It was true that the Citadel was having issues with trade.

When Immortan Joe ruled over the Citadel, he'd forced women to become 'Milking Mothers', literally milking them like cows and selling 'Mother's Milk', which had been a very valuable item to trade with the Bullet Farm and Gastown.

However, since Furiosa, Max, and the Sisters (formerly the Wives) had conquered the Citadel, Furiosa had assembled a small council, each person representing a different faction of the Citadel. Together, they had agreed to prohibit the practice.

But they soon ran into a problem when it came to trading.  
The Citadel's main item to trade had been Mother's Milk. They also used to trade water and produce, but they needed as much water as they could get to water the plants the Dag was growing, and they needed the produce to feed the people of the Citadel (formerly, the Wretched).

It was a good thing the former Milking Mothers had offered to keep giving Mothers Milk until a solution could be found.

To say that Furiosa was stressed would be an understatement.

On top of the trading issue, Furiosa was determined to give the Sisters a thorough education concerning their magic heritage.

Furiosa herself was a very talented witch, as Miss Giddy had been before she was killed, but she couldn't teach the girls everything they needed to know at the Citadel.

It was true that Capable had started a school for the War Pups, or anyone who had a desire to learn.

Unfortunately, the Citadel lacked the necessary tools for a full time school for magic. Capable had scrapped together every single book, wand, and piece of parchment the Citadel had to offer, but with the vast number of people in the Citadel (every one of them being a witch or wizard), it just wasn't enough.

"I'm thinking about something." Furiosa said ominously.

"About what, then?" Toast pressed, and Furiosa could detect an irritated edge to her voice.

Furiosa chewed her bottom lip before speaking again, deciding to tread carefully around Toast's fiery temper, she'd gotten in fights with Toast before -- bad ones -- the last thing she needed right now was another one.

"I've been thinking about your girls' education in magic, and I already know that I don't have the tools to teach you, nor am I the right kind of person. I've also been thinking about the school that I went to when I was younger, and, turns out, it's still there. I sent the Ace to contact the headmaster a few weeks ago; he hasn't returned yet. Point is, I think I'm going to send you girls to the school so you can graduate and have a _somewhat_ normal life. You're only teenagers after all."

At the end of Furiosa's speech, Toast seemed to be slack jawed.

"You're sending us away?!" She yelled in shock.

"I'm not sending you away, I'm giving you a chance to be normal, a chance that none of you ever got thanks to Immortan Joe and the Dark Lord!" Furiosa countered defensively.

"FUCK THE DARK LORD!" Toast suddenly screamed, her onyx eyes livid with hatred and malice.

But Furiosa is not to be put off by Toast's sudden outburst of fury.

"Toast." She says gently, "I could _never_ send any of you away. You should know that I care about all of you far too much to ever abandon you like that." She risks grasping Toast's upper arms in a reassuring clasp, and is relieved when she does not retaliate. "Like I said before, I only want for you to have a chance at a normal life. I know you think it, but _this_ ," she releases one of Toast's arms to gesture around the Citadel, " _this_ is  _not_  normal!"

"But it it to me! It's all I've ever known!" Toast howls, though her voice cracks slightly at the end of her sentence.

"I know how you feel, I felt the same way when Joe's thugs stole me from my home, but after a while, even _this_ became what I considered a normal way of life." Furiosa says, hugging Toast.

Toast takes a few long moments to regain her composure, and when she does, she pulls away from Furiosa and adjusts the muslin strips around her chest.

"Can we go back inside? I want to see what everyone else is doing." She says, her voice quiet, but certainly not defeated.

"Of course." Furiosa agrees.

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

When Toast and Furiosa came back inside the repurposed Biodome, they were met by the gazes of the other three Sisters; the Dag seemed to have been repotting an apple tree sapling, dirt is strewn across the wooden table she is working upon, Cheedo sat at a different table, labeling different bottles of tonics and medicines, her delicate manuscript is visible on the flask of anesthetic she's holding, and Capable is caught in the middle of cooking a vegetable stew, a pot of water is over the stove, and Capable herself is cutting potatoes harvested from the Dag's garden.

They all stare unblinkingly at Furiosa and Toast, though their eyes are directed towards Furiosa more than they are at Toast; their expressions are almost accusing.

"How much did you hear?" Furiosa asks wearily.

"Well," said Capable, dropping a diced potato into the frothing pot of water, "we tuned in at around the same time Toast started yelling."

"So you heard the part about the school?" Furiosa inquires, sounding more defeated by the second.

At this, the Sisters all look to their feet, Cheedo setting the half-labeled flask on the table; Capable neglecting her stew so that it nearly boils over before she hurriedly stirs the brew again.

"We understand." The Dag says, pushing a thick tendril of platinum blonde hair behind her ear, cool grey eyes shining with an odd emotion neither Toast nor Furiosa could identify. "Or at least I do."

Cheedo is toying with the ends of her dark brown hair; she looks more like the scared, timid girl Joe had named her for. But Cheedo the Fragile was gone with the Fury Road, leaving only Cheedo. _Just_ Cheedo.

"What if they don't like us? The people at the school I mean." She gives another characteristic tug at her hair.

Furiosa frowns, "I don't think they'll notice you as long as you don't stick out too much. To them, you'll be just another student."

"And if we do stick out?" Capable asks as she continues to nurse her stew, her tone is ominous.

Furiosa sits down at the table next the the Dag, folding her hands in her lap.

"Then you'll have come back, I suppose, though it's highly unlikely you four will rouse the suspicions of some schoolchildren." She says, smirking.

Cheedo still looks apprehensive; she pulls and twists a tendril of her dark brown hair.

"How many people will be at the school?" She asks, her lips forming a thin line.

"Probably a couple hundred," says Toast, "I've read about schools in books."

"Ace has never failed me; knowing him, he'll be back by tomorrow, before dawn breaks. If he has good news -- news that the headmaster will accept you -- then you'll be on your way out of the Citadel by next week." Furiosa states, her voice is strangely uneven.

All four of the Sisters know that Furiosa would miss all of them severely if they ever went away for one reason or another.

Miss Giddy had taught them about schools in their past lessons in the Biodome, and they knew that a full school year lasted about eight months.

A lot could happen in eight months; raiders could storm the Citadel, the Bullet Farm could decide to wage another bloody road war against Furiosa, another sickness could spread through the people of the Citadel again, without the Sisters being there to help -- the list went on and on.

"What's the name of the school?" Dag asks conversationally, changing the subject.

Furiosa pauses for a few moments to think.

The Sisters looked at her, expressions full of anticipation.

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

_Harry's world is black, and when he opens his eyes, his world remains that way._

_Then, he hears voices in the darkness; they sound so close, it's as if they are speaking right into his ear._

_"My name is Max." Says a gravelly man's voice. "My world is fire and blood."_

_More voices join the haunting chorus._

_"Mankind has gone rogue, terrorizing itself!" Says another man's voice, and Harry assumes that it must be a muggle reporter._

_"The Earth is sour . . ." an old woman croaks hoarsely._

_"Our bones are poisoned . . ."_

_"We have become half-lives . . ."_

_There is the sound of a rapid gunfire, followed by an inhuman scream._

_"Why are you hurting these people?!" Demands a brisk man's voice._

_"We are killing for guzzoline!"_

_"The world is running out of water!"_

_"Now there's the water wars . . ."_

_"Everything is dependent on oil!"_

_"You promised to help us!"_

_"We are not things!"_

_"WHO KILLED THE WORLD?" A woman screams._

Harry wakes with a gasp, beads of sweat glisten on his forehead, and his baggy nightshirt is completely soaked through.

Who killed the world?

The mantra is haunting in nature, and it stays permanently etched into his memory.

He hadn't had nightmares of this degree since Voldemort was alive, but he was killed by Harry in the Department of Mysteries.

"Harry?" Drawls a sleepy voice.

Harry looks across the tiny, yet cozy, bedroom, and sees Ron sitting up in his bed; his red hair was ruffled, and the blankets had fallen from his chest to expose his Chudley Cannons pajamas.

"You're not having nightmares again are you? I mean, Dumbledore killed Voldemort. What is it now?" There was no bitterness in Ron's tone, only concern.

"I don't know," Harry replied honestly, because he really had no idea what it was that he'd heard; he hadn't seen anything, but the sounds he'd experienced were disturbing to him.

Had something happened in the muggle world? He doubted it. If so much as a blade of grass was out of place in Privet drive, Harry would have gotten an earful from his Aunt Petunia.

"Ron?"

"Hmm?" Ron's face is buried in his pillow, which is patterned with golden snitches.

"Do you think that there are witches and wizards who are worse off than we are?"

"Yes." Ron replies curtly, his tone is more than a little snappish.

"No, not money-wise, I mean . . ." Harry trailed off, unsure of how to phrase his question. "Do you think there are places that the law can't reach? Witches and wizards who don't acknowledge morals or laws?"

"With the Ministry being like it is?! Fat chance!" Ron exclaims, lifting his head and turning to look at him.

Harry looks down at his Chudley Cannons blankets; the nightmare wasn't as frightening as the premonition-like visions he'd suffered from when Voldemort was alive, though this nightmare was just as unsettling, though he still wasn't quite sure if he could call it terrifying.

"Ron?" Harry called quietly, wanting to keep talking with his friend.

When there was no response from Ron, Harry looked over and saw the had once again face planted into his pillow, and was snoring loudly.

He decided that it would be inconsiderate to wake Ron for a second time, so Harry resolved to just let him sleep.

However, he was a bit uneasy about falling asleep again himself -- he didn't want to have another creepy dream.

And so, Harry Potter lay in his bed, thoroughly exhausted, yet refusing to let sleep take him.

Little did he know, that half a world away, four young women were plagued with the same situation.

 

                                                                                    ➰


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, I'm sorry it took me so long to post, but I've been really busy with school and Thanksgiving. Homework's a killjoy! Enjoy! ;)

Cheedo lay on her back on the roof of the Biodome, gazing up at the stars. 

It was the wee hours of the morning, and the Milky Way was brighter now than at any other hour of the night. 

Cheedo knew from her extensive studies of astronomy that the Milky Way itself was not just a stream of stars, but a massive Galaxy spinning in space. 

She also knew that it was a spiral galaxy, composed of several different arms, each containing billions upon billions of stars. She sometimes wondered if there could be life somewhere out there, on a planet far, far away. 

She was looking at the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way right now, and it was absolutely glorious. 

Her favorite constellation though was the Dog Star, Sirius: the faithful companion of Orion and the brightest star in the sky. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone sliding the hatch of the trapdoor to get on the roof, and she sat up, startled. 

A familiar head of black hair emerged from the hatch, followed by the upper half of the person's body. 

When Toast looked up, she seemed surprised to see Cheedo, and she pulled herself up a bit the sit on the ledge of the trapdoor. 

"What are you doing up here, Bluebird?" Toast asked, and Cheedo smiled at the affectionate nickname. 

"Couldn't sleep." She replies, a bit sadly. "You?"

"Thunderdome." Toast says bitterly, crawling fully out of the hatch to sit beside her. 

"Oh." Cheedo says, looking down. "It's been years, and the nightmares still won't stop?" 

Toast shook her head sadly. 

"Not even a little. The things I did there will never be forgotten." 

"But it wasn't your fault! Those people! They made you --" she began, but Toast cut her off. 

"Look, I did what I did; that's all." She says sourly. 

"Oh." Cheedo says again, looking down, and both girls remain silent for a while. 

Both girls simply lay there, side by side, staring at the stars for several long minutes. 

Toast coughs. 

"So, today, Capable and I were going through old Joe's horde, and --" she falters, and Cheedo gets the feeling that she doesn't know how to say what she's trying to tell her. 

"Go on . . ." Cheedo says encouragingly. 

Toast looks down at her clasped hands. 

"We --" she falters again, but clenches her jaw, determined to get the words out. "We found something of Angharad's."

Her words hit Cheedo like a shovel over the head, and she has to close her eyes, lest she start crying again for the fifth time that day. 

Everything that happened on the Fury Road had happened so fast, that it had only been after the road war that the Sisters had realized exactly what they'd lost. 

But even though the war was over, Furiosa had been completely swamped with various problems plaguing the Citadel. Naturally, the Sisters were inclined to do everything in their power to help her, not out of personal obligation, but fierce, faithful, loyalty. 

For the Sisters especially, the time-consuming work was a welcome distraction from their depressing thoughts, because, for the time that they were occupied with the strenuous jobs, they were able to absorb themselves into something useful, instead of lingering on the death of their beloved Angharad. 

Unfortunately, even distracting themselves had its disadvantages. They could only put off thinking about Angharad for so long, because sooner or later, all the pent up emotions would fester, and turn from a wrenching grief, to a potent rage. 

The first one to crack had been, surprisingly, peaceful Dag. She'd been helping one of the war boys repair a broken flywheel when she dropped a heavy wrench on her bare foot. Under normal circumstances, she probably would have just cursed loudly and then brushed off, but she'd been holding back so many emotions for so long, that the throbbing pain in her foot had been the very last straw.

What ensued particularly terrified the warboy she'd been helping, as he practically bolted from the room so fast, it was as if he'd been lit on fire. By then, Dag was making a horrible wailing sound: it sounded like she couldn't decide whether to scream or cry, so she just did both at the same time. She threw things across the garage, and swept tools off of tables with a swipe of her arm. Cheedo could recall that even Toast, who was considered to be the most aggressive of the Sisters, had been more than a little shocked at Dag's outburst. 

It took several hours for Dag to calm down to the point that Furiosa could approach her without risking bodily harm. It was that night that the Sisters all learned a hard lesson of life: grief cannot be buried, nor can it be ignored. However one may run from it or distract themselves from it, it always comes back, even worse than before. 

Since then, Furiosa had requested that the Sisters take a break from the grueling work around the Citadel, and give themselves a chance to truly recover from the war.

Furiosa's loyalty and sympathy towards the Sisters sometimes shocked them, especially since she was willing to let them take mental breaks for themselves for extended periods of time, even though it was clear that she still desperately needed their help with the many tasks around the Citadel, which just seemed to multiply by the day. 

Still though, every time Angharad's name was even mentioned, it immediately brought back the crushing sadness that the Sisters had all been trying to free themselves from. 

"What did you find?" Cheedo asks tentatively, not entirely sure that she wants to know the answer. 

In response, Toast reaches her arm down the hatch and grabs something that was draped of one of the rungs of the ladder. When she draws her arm back, Cheedo sees that she is holding a scarf. It's made of a beautiful fabric, a sandy shade of beige like the desert that stretched infinitely out in all directions of the Citadel. It had simple, white designs on it too, shaped like strange raindrops. 

Toast must have seen Cheedo's wistful gaze as she stared at the scarf, because she pushed it into Cheedo's arms.

"We were digging through his desk and this was stuffed into one of the drawers. Capable was the one who found it, I remember because she just started crying right out of the blue." Toast says, watching as Cheedo buried her face into the fabric, inhaling deeply.

"It smells like her." She says, "like white lilies and peonies."

Toast nods, turning her gaze up to the stars. 

The fabric of the scarf was amazingly soft. Not like the muslin strips they wore, which, while comfortable, held none of the feather-soft delicacy that the scarf possessed. 

Clutching her precious possession to her chest, Cheedo leaned back and lay down on the roof of the Biodome, closing her eyes. Several seconds passed, and then she heard Toast do the same, laying her head next to Cheedo's. 

The following silence is between the two is peaceful and cherished. However, it only lasts for a few minutes before Cheedo breaks the sleepy trance.   
"You know, I love the idea of going to a school for magic, and getting an education, but I'd feel like we were abandoning Furiosa if we went and disappeared for a year to go." She says quietly.

"I understand." Toast says, "but she seems pretty adamant that we have at least one normal event in our life. Don't you remember all the history books that Ms. Giddy would read to us?"

Cheedo opens her eyes blearily and turns her head to look at Toast. 

"What?" She questions sleepily.

"Most of the children in those books went to some form of school, and they all had teachers and homework. That's where we should have been. That's what our lives should have been like. Not here being some old fuck's sex toys." She says, raising her voice slightly at the end of her sentence. She was not going to allow sweet, innocent Cheedo to give up on her chance at having a normal life. 

At this point Cheedo is nodding slowly, but Toast can see that she's starting to fall asleep, so she sits up and gently brushes a few strands of hair away from her adoptive sister's face. 

"Listen, Bluebird, we'll finish this in the morning. I'm sure everyone else has their own opinion on this." Toast says gently, "Knowing Dag, she'll want to take all her plants." She finishes her sentence with a quiet laugh, imagining Dag trying to pack all of her pots into a vehicle for the journey to the school. 

But Cheedo hadn't heard her, she was already fast asleep, her chest rising and falling evenly. 

Toast smiled, and carefully picked her up, trying not to disturb her, and made her way over to the hatch. 

Climbing down the ladder with Cheedo in her arms was a challenge, as Toast had no desire to drop her sister, but it certainly wasn't an impossible feat, because luckily, there was a decently comfortable fishnet hammock about a third of the way down the ladder. 

It was strung between the two far walls of the Biodome, held up by six ropes tied to hooks that were bolted down into the rock wall, so there was no way it could fall down while someone was sleeping in it, even though it's occupant would just plummet twenty-five feet down into the bathing pool below, which was deep enough to dive into from the roof, and resurface uninjured. 

Reaching said hammock, Toast shifted Cheedo's sleeping form from her shoulder, and back into her arms. It was a strain on her upper body, but Toast was eventually able to maneuver Cheedo into a comfortable position in the hammock without falling from the ladder. She lay Cheedo on her back with her head on the small pillow at the head of the hammock, and her arms crossed over her chest, her hands still clutching Angharad's scarf. 

Toast, still with one hand grasping a rung of the ladder, reached down to Cheedo's ankles and pulled the thin, white sheet up to her chin. When she was sure that her sister was comfortable, she descended the rest of the way down the ladder, jumping down from it when she was only a few feet above the ground. 

Toast padded silently through the Biodome in her bare feet, her footsteps effectively muted. As she walked through the various rooms, she silently observed the night life of the Citadel.

Outside the Biodome's arched glass windows, the two main spires of the Citadel rose over ground, the Biodome being in the third, and largest spire. 

The first housed the all the water in the city, and the second was home to the amateur school that Capable had started with Dag and Cheedo. 

They commonly asked Toast if she could be persuaded to teach the War Pups, but Toast would politely decline, stating that she hadn't the patience nor the academic skill needed to teach a room full of unruly children. 

However, she never hesitated to teach some of the Pups how to shoot a gun or repair a machine. See, Toast didn't dislike the children, she was quite fond of them really, she just knew what she was good at, and she stuck with it. 

The spire that held the aquifer was the first place that Furiosa and the Sisters went to at the break of dawn. The aquifer consumed much of their time, as they constantly had to clean the pipes, which were about fifty feet underground, where the rock was moist with spring water. 

It was also a work in progress to figure out the dimensions of the well that held the water, because if they knew how much water it could hold, they could calculate how many people they could distribute the water to, as dehydration was still a dire problem in the Citadel, although conditions for its people were steadily improving. 

At night however, the Citadel was fairly at rest. As Toast looked down at the small shacks and repair stations at ground from 300 feet up in the Biodome, she only spied a few ant-sized people moving about through the city. 

Moving down the hallway towards her room, Toast noted that Dag's bedroom door was slightly ajar. Moving quietly, she walked to the door and gently pushed it open, just enough to see inside the room. 

Dag was in her bed sleeping peacefully, her platinum blonde hair falling over her pillow in thick cascades. Toast also noted the thick, leather bound tome that lay open on Dag's stomach, likely because her sister had, once again, fallen asleep while reading. 

Shutting the door, Toast entered the room adjacent to Dag's and sat down heavily onto her bed, running a hand through her short hair. She knew that there wouldn't be much of a point in trying to fall asleep now, the sun had already begun its climb into the sky, gentle rays of violet and lavender streaked their way across the endless midnight blue. 

Toast was about to bed down for the remaining hours of the night, when a small voice at the back of her head gave her pause. 

"Wait." It breathed, sounding so close yet just out of reach.

Of course.   
Reaching under her pillow, Toast pulled out a small handgun; It was a silver .44 magnum revolver, with a leather-wrapped handle. Simply out of paranoia, Toast spun the chamber to check the rounds. She came to find that it was fully loaded, and, relieved, she finally lay down, resting her head on her pillow, and closed her eyes, the magnum still clutched firmly in her grasp. She never felt completely safe unless she was carrying a weapon of some sort, even if she was just around her sisters. 

As she lay in bed, her eyes were at rest, but her mind was not. She had thought about the man who helped them on the Fury Road. What was his name again? Oh, yes. His name had been Max. She'd heard him say the name when he was tending to Furiosa in the Gigahorse, but Furiosa hadn't been awake to hear -- she'd been on the brink of death, fighting for every breath she took, and, although Toast would never admit it to anyone other than her sisters, she had been terrified that their savior was going to die. 

When Max left them at the lift in the Citadel, Toast was furious. She'd been sure that he would come up with them and continue to help Fuiriosa, especially since he seemed to care for her. How dare he leave them?! They could have used his help!

However, as much as Toast wanted to stay angry at him and continue to hate him, she couldn't. Because deep down, she understood his unwillingness to stay, and potentially risk seeing something good be destroyed, as Toast herself had once wanted nothing more than to leave. She'd told herself, at the beginning of her imprisonment in the Biodome, that once she escaped, she would leave, never to return to the beacon of hope that was the Citadel. 

Toast also had the suspicion that Max once had a family, probably before the nuclear fallout destroyed the atmosphere in the Wasteland. However, she knew better than to ask what happened to them, as she herself loathed when others asked what had happened to her own family. 

Turning over in her bed, Toast sighed heavily, thinking about all the various challenges in the Citadel that she would have to tend to in the morning. They seemed to call to her even as she lay at rest in her bed. 

However, Toast was content to ignore life's problems, even if it was for just a few hours. 

She finally closed her eyes to sleep.


	3. Never Told a Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, y'all! I'm really sorry that I haven't been updating this story like I should be, but I recently got myself an account on Wattpad, and I've been posting the story there for a few weeks now. On Wattpad, updates are regular, since it's a little hard to juggle ttwo different accounts at once. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story, and while you're at it, check out my accounts on Wattpad for the latest updates (CountrySun69). I'll do my best to keep y'all posted here on ao3 in the meantime however. As per usual, enjoy the story! ;)

Harry awoke early the next morning with a fierce headache pounding in his ears, which he assumed was due to his lack of sleep. He groaned and turned onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow, as the bright, morning sunlight seemed to make the pain worse. Was this what a hangover felt like?

Blearily, Harry mustered the courage to open his eyes, but he immediately regretted his decision, as a sharp pain shot through his skull, just behind his eyes. However, in the short time that his eyes were open, he'd been able to see that Ron's bed, which was just across from his own, was empty, likely because his friend had already gone downstairs for breakfast.

Harry groaned again. As much as he wanted to sleep off his migraine, his empty stomach was pinched with painful hunger, and his body's command to eat overruled the throbbing in his head, so he reluctantly rose from the warm comfort of his bed and made his way to the door, which he missed by at least a foot, and the wall jostled him rather rudely into awareness when he collided with it, missing the doorway by a good eighteen inches.

Groaning in pain, he felt his way along the wall, still trying in vain to get out of the room. He still had no idea how in Merlin's name he was going to make it down the tall flight of winding stairs without falling to his death.

Harry was so preoccupied with the task of escaping the bedroom, that he didn't notice Ginny standing in the doorway until she'd made her way over to him and taken hold of his arm.

"Bloody hell, Harry!" She exclaimed, grunting as she tried to support his weight with her small frame. "You're a mess!"

Harry scoffed, still trying to keep his eyes open for intervals longer than five seconds.

To his surprise, and mild disappointment, he found that Ginny was not leading him towards the stairs to the kitchen, but was instead slowly guiding him in the direction of the bathroom.

It took some creative maneuvering on Ginny's part, but she was eventually able to get Harry into the bathroom, where he gratefully leaned against the sturdy, wooden wall.

"Alright, what's wrong with you, Harry?" Ginny asked, opening a large cupboard near the sink and sifting through various potions and tonics.

"Lots of things." Harry replied dryly.

Ginny smacked him on the arm lightly. "Symptoms, Harry! I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong! Where are you feeling pain?"

"It's my bloody scar, and I feel like my head is going to split open, I can't even keep my eyes open." He said, clutching his forehead, and still keeping his eyes closed tightly.

Immediately, Harry heard Ginny stop searching the cabinet, and he hesitantly opened his eyes, grimacing against the pain.

His vision was blurry, but he could clearly make out a shock of red hair in front of him, mixed in with pale skin, but after blinking a few times, Harry was able to bring Ginny's face into focus, and was surprised to see that she was looking at him the way a parent would look at a child when said child told a particularly embellished lie.

"Harry . . ." She said, speaking slowly, as if he'd suffered a head injury and couldn't understand normal speech. He'd seen patients at St. Mungo's be spoken to in such a manner. "Your scar only hurts when something bad is about to happen, but Voldemort's dead now. You can relax, alright? You're safe. This headache of yours is probably due to stress. I can give you a Pepper-Up Potion, but that's it! After that, I want you to come downstairs and eat breakfast with us!"

Ginny dug around the cabinet again, and finally retrieved a small, brown bottle. Measuring the proper dosage, she shoved it into Harry's fumbling hands.

"Here." She said, turning to leave the room. "If this happens again, you can send an owl to Dumbledore. He'll want to know about this. But I want you to tell my mum about this as soon as you get downstairs, alright?"

Harry reluctantly agrees, but then, another thought rose unbidden to his mind.

"Ginny?"

The redhead turns to look at Harry, and he fixes his gaze to hers.

"This was just a bad dream, right? Nothing bad is going to happen to anyone?" He asks, his voice is small and worried.

Immediately, Ginny's face falls, and she appears almost pitying. She knows that he's looking for reassurance, and she's more than willing to give it to him, even if it is all a lie.

"Of course, Harry." She croons gently. "I've read about anxiety disorders before, so it's probably nothing. After breakfast, you can owl Hermione and see what she has to say. Chances are, she'll know a whole lot more than I do."

Harry cringes inwardly. He can already hear Hermione's worried voice in his mind:

"Now, Harry!" She would say as she flipped though her books. "You simply must tell Dumbledore about this! Here! In my book, it says that PTSD is common among victims of emotional or physical trauma . . ."

Harry loved Hermione's constant enthusiasm to help, truly he did, but sometimes she could get a little over-excited.

"Maybe later, Ginny. I'm a little tired right now." He replies to her suggestion, felling a little anxious just visualizing Hermione's response.

Ginny nods understandingly, and calmly saunters out of the room, leaving Harry to his own devices.

He immediately downed the potion, which burned his throat going down, but he was so desperate for any kind of relief from the pain in his head, that he was willing to try just about anything to make it go away.

It took a few minutes for the potion to take effect, but when it did, Harry could feel the difference: he didn't feel so lethargic anymore, and, although his headache was still ever-present, it had been reduced to a mere, dull throb. At least now, it was manageable.

Again, Harry's stomach twisted painfully, and he was reminded of his body's need to eat. He thought of Mrs. Weasley, and how hard she must of worked to make breakfast for everyone. He didn't want to be seen as rude, so he fought his way into the hall and down the steep, winding stairs of the Burrow, pleased that he could now keep his eyes open without severe pain.

When Harry was halfway down the staircase, he could hear Mrs. Weasley humming merrily in the kitchen as she cast spells so that the dirty dishes would wash themselves, and the ingredients for the food would put themselves away.

Harry stepped onto the landing, apparently forgetting about the loose floorboard beneath his feet, because it squeaked dreadfully when he put his weight on it.

Now aware of his presence, Mrs. Weasley turned to face him, a broad smile upon her face. She'd done her unruly red hair up into a loose, messy bun on top of her head, but some of her hair was too short to be tucked into the hairdo, so they fell out and framed her round face. She seemed very tired - dark circles surrounded her eyes, and her clothes were rumpled and dirty, as if she'd slept in them for several nights, and hadn't bothered to change them. 

"Harry, dear!" She chimed pleasantly, and Harry admired her brave attempt to act cheerful when it was obvious that she wasn't beyond exhausted. "I've saved you some breakfast, although I'm afraid that it's just the normal chicken eggs on toast. I didn't really have time to add any spices."

As she crosses the small kitchen to give him his breakfast, she frowns and places a hand on his forehead. Her hands are cold compared to his steaming skin, and he involuntarily leans into her touch.

"Harry, you're burning up! Now you hold on, I'll get you something for that fever of yours right away!" She exclaims, already hurrying to the medicine cabinet in the hallway, but Harry stops her, shaking his head perhaps a bit too vigorously, as it makes him dizzy. 

"I'm fine, really! I don't need anything, I swear!" He says, a little too quickly, before wisely deciding to change the subject. "Also, I think breakfast looks great, Mrs. Weasley, this is more than enough for me." 

"By the way, Harry dear, if you're looking for Ron, he's out back de-gnoming the garden." She says, before muttering under her breath. "Pesky creatures are relentless this time of year."

Harry gives her a small, grateful smile.

"Thank you." He said, taking the plate of steaming food, the delicious aroma wafting up to him as he sat down at the kitchen table to eat.

Spooning giant bites of eggs and toast into his mouth, Harry absentmindedly stares out the kitchen window above the sink, watching as five, fat brown hens pecked their way around the yard.

Harry would have given anything in the world to live in a place like this when he was younger.

In all actuality, he'd been jealous of Ron when he'd seen how loving his family was. They didn't have much, but they had each other, and that was more than enough for Harry.

As Harry finishes his belated breakfast, Ron, with scratches all down his arms and small tears in his clothes, bursts into the kitchen, looking extremely winded and exasperated.

"Bloody things are everywhere!" He gasps, dramatically supporting his weight against the door frame. "They're damn relentless too!"

Harry tries to resist the urge to laugh at his friends plight as Mrs. Weasley immediately scolded him for using foul language, but his amusement must have registered on his face, because Ron glared peevishly at him, although there was no real anger in his eyes, just playful agitation.

Ron went on to bemoan his wretched morning, whining about the gnomes, Errol crashing into the kitchen window while carrying the post. The list went on and on, and Harry laughed through most of it, completely forgetting about his dream. It was just a stupid dream after all, now wasn't it?

However, sometime during Ron's rundown of his day so far, Ginny came back into the house, looking just as worse-for-wear as her older brother. Harry only noticed her when she seemed to deliberately place herself in his field of vision, and when they made eye contact, she seemed to silently urge him to speak up. He knew exactly what she wanted, but, if he was being totally honest, he didn't want to ruin the happy, upbeat atmosphere with news about a stupid dream.

He shook his head minutely at her, and she gave him a stern look, her eyes hardening slightly. However, it seemed as if she'd relented, for now, because she didn't force him to say anything, instead giving him a look that clearly meant something along the lines of: 'we'll talk about this later', and left the room.

Harry released a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He was eternally grateful to Ginny for not forcing him to divulge his little dream, as pathetic as it was, to the whole family just yet. 

He'd never told a lie to the Weasley family, and he desperately hoped that he wouldn't have to do so now. Right now, he just wanted to enjoy the peace while it lasted, for however long that may be . . .


	4. Hardships and Loyalties

Capable was dragged out of a deep, peaceful sleep, and back into harsh reality early the next morning by the sound of gunshots. It took her a few moments to register the sound for what it was, as her mind was still clouded by sleep.  
The sun was just beginning to peer over the horizon, turning the ominous black sky a livid shade of scarlet. Normally, the sun was much higher in the sky by the time Capable and her sisters rose from their beds, but not on this day. Something was wrong.  
At this point, Capable is already on her feet, and running to her bedroom door to see what the commotion was about, but before her hand can even reach the handle, the door slams open, crashing into the wall behind it and shaking on its very hinges. Toast bursts into the room, a flash of white muslin and black hair. She has a semi-automatic assault rifle clutched in her hands, her knuckles white as she holds the weapon in a death grip.  
Toast has to pull the door from where it's stuck in the plaster wall and slams it closed, throwing her weight against it and locking all eight of the deadbolts before she slides down the door and onto the ground. She then grabs Capable by the wrist and roughly yanks her down to kneel beside her.  
"Toast, what's going on?!" Capable shouts at her. Gunshots still ring out through the Citadel, growing steadily closer to the Biodome. All thoughts of sleep have left the redhead's mind by now.  
"It's a raid! Gastown boys!" Toast responds, her tone is calm, but Capable isn't bothered by her sister's blunt indifference to violence anymore.  
"What the fuck for!?" Capable practically shrieks, "What did we do to them?!"  
"Dunno." Toast says plainly, and as she talks, she feverishly works to reload the gun, running her hands over it with more speed and skill than anyone Capable has ever seen. "But if I had to take a wild guess, I'd bet it's because we stole about seventy gallons of guzzoline and three of their best war vehicles. Oops." She makes a fake expression of regret at the end of her sentence.  
"Where are they now?" Capable demands urgently, hoping to Merlin that they aren't as close to the Biodome as they sound, because the gunshots and sounds of yelling grow increasingly louder with each passing second.  
"They're trying to break into the vault, but they're not having much luck with that. Furiosa's trying to hold them off the aquifer." Toast says, cocking the gun and slinging it back over her shoulder.  
"Wait - Furiosa's alone out there?! Toast, we have to help her! What if she's hurt and needs our help?!" Capable exclaims in a panic, immediately fearing the worst for the only mother figure she'd ever had in her entire life.   
Toast gives her a sly grin, like she knew an important secret that no one else did.  
"Yeah, well, you'll never guess who decided to show up for the party . . ." She says cryptically, pulling herself and her sister back up onto their feet.  
"Look," Toast says seriously, looking the redhead dead in the eye, "I need you to get everyone out of the Biodome as fast as you can. Go onto the roof and there's a bridge from the roof of the Biodome to the Greenhouses. When you get there, go the the last row of plants by the big apple tree and you'll see a big, steel door. Hide in there and lock it from the other side. I'll meet you there as soon as I can. You do remember the code word right?"  
Of course she does. After all, Toast had only drilled it into her head about one million times.   
"Yes, of course I know! Silver Fox to let you in, Black Fog if-" Capable begins, but Toast quickly cuts her off.  
"Yes, that's great, but you need to go. Now!" She says, the urgency is thick in her tone as she flings the door open and shoves Capable outside, instantly lifting the muzzle of the rifle, ready to shoot anyone who decided to jump out at them.  
Once Capable has been safely escorted to the bedrooms at the opposite end of the Biodome, Toast speaks.  
"Alright, I'm sorry, but I have to go help Furiosa, so I'm afraid that from here on out, you're on your own, but I'm not going to leave you defenseless, so here, take these." Toast reaches down and unstraps her magnum revolver and six-inch shank blade, pushing them into Capable's shaking hands.  
"the Mag's fully loaded. All you have to do is-"  
"Yes, I know," Capable says, turning the weapon over in her hands, "just flip the safety off, point, and shoot. You taught me this as soon as we got back from the road war."  
She then places a comforting hand on Toast's shoulder, and is relieved when she doesn't flinch nearly as much as she used to.   
"Toast." Capable says in a firm, strong voice, "Nothing is going to happen to us. We're all here, and we'll all be okay. One day, I can only hope that you'll trust us enough to let us fight with you. You don't need to do this all by yourself anymore."  
Toast snags her bottom lip between her teeth and bites on it, hard. Capable isn't sure what it is that she's remembering, but she can't imagine that it's pleasant.   
"You don't understand . . ." She says, her voice still strong, but her stony mask beginning to fall. "I can't — no, I won't lose any more family than I already have. If something were to happen to any of you, I don't know what I would do."   
Capable lunges forward and embraces her sister, resting her head on her shoulder.   
"Don't worry about us, we'll be fine. The only thing you need to worry about is staying alive. You say that you wouldn't know what to do if something happened to us, but we would be lost without you. Now go!" She separates herself from Toast and slowly backs away, watching as Toast steels herself, shifting the gun on her shoulder and schooling her expression and composure back to that of a War Boy going out for a final battle. Capable hoped, as with every other day, that this one wouldn't be her last.  
Toast gives her sister a small, wry smile, spinning on her heels and bolting in the opposite direction, her rifle swinging wildly around as she runs. As soon as she is out of sight, Capable turns around and sprints in the direction of her sisters' rooms on the opposite end of the Biodome.  
She reaches Dagmar's room first, and she bangs loudly on the door, knowing that her sister happened to be a very light sleeper. Luckily, it was only a few seconds before Dag opened the door sleepily, and Capable grabbed her thin wrist and pulled her out the door before she had the chance to protest, practically dragging her down the hall to where Cheedo usually slept.  
"Capable, wait!" Dag shouts, snapping into awareness, and pulling madly at her ensnared wrist. "What's happening?!"  
"It's a raid! We have to get Cheedo!" Capable says quickly, but as she rips the door to Cheedo's bedroom open, she finds that it is empty — the bed is still made, the sheets remain smooth, and the pillow unruffled.  
"Where the hell is she?!" She yells, turning to Dag, as if expecting her to have an answer. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't.   
"I was asleep before she came back from working in the infirmary, so I wouldn't know." Dag states apologetically, still trying to pull away from her sister's grasp.  
"We have to find her right now! Come on, Dag! Think! Where would Cheedo bed down for the night if she couldn't make it back to her bedroom?" She pondered aloud, her sense of desperation to find her sister growing with each passing second.   
Dag, realizing that Capable has let go of her wrist, takes advantage of her new-found freedom and bolts back down the hall before Capable can stop her.   
"Where are you going?!" Capable bellows after her, starting to give chase before she realizes that any attempt to catch her sister would be futile, as Dag could easily outrun her without much effort.   
"I have to get something! If the shooters get in, I don't want them to burn the books!"  
Capable shakes her head, watching as her sister rounds a sharp corner, her platinum blonde tress trailing behind her like a tail. She can't waste any more time — she must find Cheedo, and when she does, then, in the worst case scenario, she can stall for time so Dag has enough time to get back to them.   
She races down to hall and skids into the main foyer of the Biodome, her green eyes frantically searching the vast room from top to bottom, hoping to catch a glimpse of her younger sister.   
The cots are all empty, and Cheedo isn't hiding under any of them, even though Capable knows that she hasn't done that for years now. However, even though Capable tears the entire room apart, there is still no sign of Cheedo, and she's pondering wether or not she has time to go back and search the bedrooms down the hall again when a thought hits her like a brick: 'look up.'  
Capable drags her gaze from the floor and slowly looks up to the ceiling. Sure enough, she sees Cheedo's long, dark brown hair spilling out over the side of the hammock about twenty-five feet in the air. Now, unlike Dag, Cheedo had been known to sleep through massive earthquakes, and once she fell asleep, it was almost a lost cause in trying to wake her.  
Capable practically leapt onto the ladder, grasping at the rungs as she scaled it with astonishing speed. As soon as she was within arm's reach of her sister, she reached her hand out and firmly smacked the bottom of the hammock. She was surprised when Cheedo immediately jolted awake with a loud gasp, almost losing her balance and falling out of the upset hammock.   
"Capable, what-" Cheedo was cut off by the sound of gunshots. Her eyes opened wider than Capable ever thought was humanly possible, and all the color fled from her face as she shakily clambered out of the hammock and down the ladder behind Capable.  
As soon as Cheedo's bare feet touch the stone floor of the Biodome, she looks to her sister with an alarming sense of urgency, and the redhead already knows what her sister is about to ask before she even has the chance to open her mouth.  
"Capable." She says, her voice wavering, but her expression is determined. "Where's Toast?"  
Capable doesn't know how to respond. Cheedo and Toast had forged a special bond during their imprisonment by Immortan Joe. Toast had always protected her from him whenever he came into the Biodome, and was never afraid to take a beating if it meant sparing Cheedo the trauma that the other sisters had been forced to go through almost daily. Whatever God is out there knows that Toast had tried her damndest to do the same for the others, but between the constant beatings and starvation, sometimes she hadn't been able to even stand up. On one horrible occasion, Joe had cut the Achilles Tendon in Toast's ankle, leaving her unable to walk for a long while, but luckily, she'd made a full recovery with the help of Ms. Giddy and her sisters. It was an unsaid fact that Toast would sacrifice herself for any one of her sisters, but may God have mercy on the poor soul who dared to hurt Cheedo . . .  
Cheedo took Capable's resolute silence as an answer to her inquiry, and Capable looks away as her sister's youthful face fall into abject despondency. Yet, despite her obvious distraught, Cheedo still refused to cry, her face melding into the same, stony mask that Toast wore on a day-to-day basis.  
"Where's Dag?" She asks, her tone flat and deflated.  
"I think she ran to either her bedroom or the library. She's afraid that the Gastown Boys will destroy the books we have in here if they do manage to break in." Capable replies, straining her ears and eyes, hoping to find any sign of Dag's return, but Cheedo drags her attention away with another question.  
"Gastown Boys? What do they have to do with this?"  
Capable looks at her, and shrugs.  
"I don't know for sure, but Toast says it's because we stole about seventy gallons of guzzoline right from under their noses. If you ask me, I'd say that's  more than enough cause for a raid." She says.  
Cheedo's eyebrows knit together in a severe frown.  
"But I thought the Warboys didn't have the authorization to make a decision like that. The only people who can approve of supply runs are on the high council, but Furiosa has superior authority, right? Did one of the Warboys steal the fuel on impulse or something?" She questions, and her queries continued relentlessly until Capable has to cut her off.  
"Cheedo," She says, exasperation beginning to seep into her voice. "I don't know. Can't we deal with this later?"  
Cheedo presses her lips into a thin, hard line. Capable knows she can't help it ― when Cheedo gets nervous, instead of falling silent like one would expect, she tended to fill the tense atmosphere with awkward attempts at speech to ease the minds of others, usually taking the form of numerous, rapid-fire questions. After all, answers made everyone feel better, didn't they?  
However, Capable can still plainly see that her sister has one more, pressing question that needs answering. She decides to put Cheedo's mind to ease, or at least something along those lines, since they currently have what sounds like about thirty armed Gastown Boys trying to break into the Biodome to kill them, or possibly worse.  
"I don't know," Capable laments quietly, biting her lower lip. "Dag left a little while ago ― right before I left to find you. If she isn't back soon, I'm afraid we'll have to leave without her. She knows where to go, and she'll catch up fast."  
Cheedo's expression of controlled fear turns to outright terror at Capable's suggestion of abandoning their sister.  
"No!" She howls, utterly distraught, and she turns around, making to run back down the hall ― not to go anywhere in particular, just anywhere she thinks Dagmar might be, but Capable stops her before she can make it out of the foyer however, and yanks her back towards the base of the ladder, lifting her up and depositing her so that Cheedo clings to the rungs of the ladder, looking down at her redheaded sister, her eyes holding a heavy accusation.  
"Cheedo, please," Capable begs, clasping her hands in front of her and looking up at her sister with pleading emerald orbs. "I'm not abandoning her, and you should know me well enough by now to know that I could never do that. But you should also know Dag well enough to trust her with her own life. Next to Toast, she's probably one of the toughest people I know, and she will get back to us. You just have to trust her. Trust me."  
Cheedo continued to stare doe-eyed at her sister, her deep brown eyes wide, and the dread was almost tangible within their fathomless depths.  
"Go." Capable says, her voice is gentle, but there is no mistaking the underlying order, one that Cheedo cannot ignore.  
Wordlessly, Cheedo begins to scale the ladder, throwing one last look of worry towards her sister before continuing up the ladder, ascending further towards the glass domed ceiling of the Biodome, about fifty feet into the air.  
Capable hesitates to follow her youngest sister, as she still wants to give Dag every chance that she can to catch up to them. She keeps both of her hands on the ladder, firmly grasping the rungs just in case one of the Gastown Boys broke through the repurposed vault lock that guarded the entrance to the Biodome and she had to quickly scamper up the ladder to get away.  
She stands like this for about half a minute, glancing constantly over her shoulder, hoping beyond hope that she'll see Dag's shock of platinum hair flying behind her as she runs to the ladder, but Dag doesn't seem to be turning up any time soon, and currently, time is not something Capable can spare.  
Capable hears the harsh, rough voices of who she assumes to be the Gastown Boys right outside the vault door, and she knows she can't wait any longer. She climbed the ladder as fast as she possibly could, going hand over hand and foot over foot, practically flying up the ladder with astonishing ease.  
Each of the sisters had something they were passionate about; for Toast, it was weaponry and mechanics; Dag preferred the subject of botany, spending every waking second of every day poring over her books and plants; though Cheedo had her heart set on becoming a healer in the infirmary, constantly watching over Maadi's shoulder as she tended to wounded Warboys.  
Capable however, was more suited to acrobatics, and was able to perform astounding feats of athleticism that her sisters could never seem to pull off, even though she regularly taught them some of her own personal tricks. Currently, Capable had taken to pestering Furiosa about letting her fight in raids as a pole-cat, since she'd been fascinated by the level of flexibility and athletic ability they exhibited as they sailed through the air. Furiosa of course, forbade her from joining the squad, much to the redhead's disappointment.  
Cheedo reached the escape hatch first and threw it open ― fumbling with the safety latch for a few moments, the adrenaline in her system causing her hands to shake. Capable quickly followed suit, jumping up onto the roof of the Biodome. There were three deadbolts on the outside of the safety hatch, as well as on the interior, but Capable didn't slide any of them into place for fear that she would trap Dag inside.  
Just then, Cheedo misstepped, and fell down hard on the glass, domed roof of the Biodome, and her sister immediately rushed to her aid, snatching her wrist and hauling her back up to her feet before she could fall two-thousand-feet down to the Citadel below.   
 It then occurred to Capable that, because she had woken Cheedo up so suddenly, she hadn't had time to grab her shoes, so it would be especially hard for her to keep her footing on the smooth glass, and unfortunately, Capable didn't have shoes either, so she was in as much danger as her sister.  
"Well that's just perfect, now isn't it?" Capable stated sarcastically, glancing forlornly down at her bare feet.  
"I say we try to walk on the rafters ― they can support our weight better than this glass, and it'll be harder to slip." Cheedo says, clinging to Capable's side as she tried not to fall from her precarious perch on top of the safety hatch.  
Capable nods in agreement, and the two slowly meander towards the closest steel beam, struggling for purchase on the smooth surface. However, as they continue to the beam, Cheedo falls again, and this time, she doesn't get up, instead opting to stay on her hands and knees, carefully inching her way along the roof.  
"What are you doing?" Capable asks her sister, bewildered.  
"Wishing that I'd brought my shoes." Cheedo replies, and her tone is drier than dry.  
Capable was able to keep her balance with relative ease, courtesy of her skill in acrobatics, but Cheedo probably felt more comfortable on all fours, since she was closer to the ground that way and could catch herself if she slipped again.   
The two sisters continued their gradual journey toward the Greenhouses, but progress was painfully slow, and Capable wasn't sure how much time they had left until the Gastown boys finally broke through the vault and entered the Biodome.   
Automatically, Capable's thoughts drifted to her wayward sister — still buried in the depths of the great, domed structure, trying to save whatever valuables she had.   
However silly Capable thought her sister to be at times, she had to admit that the Biodome did  house some items that were worth saving.   
She continued this chain of thought, vicious scenarios of doom playing out in her head — the scenes chasing each other like heartbeats.  
It was only the mildly panicked voice of her sister that jolted her back into reality.   
"Capable, look!" Cheedo shouts, finally mustering the courage to stand upright, pointing downward at the Greenhouses, which were roughly one hundred feet or so down. It was a steep drop, and there was no way that they could jump down without hurting themselves.   
Capable stared down at their current predicament: in the past, there had always been a narrow, rope bridge spanning across the treacherous space between the Biodome and the Greenhouses, but for whatever reason, the ropes tethering the bridge to a vantage point on the roof of the Greenhouses were completely severed, which meant that, unless they found some other way across, they didn't have a way to get into the bunker.   
Capable bit her lip as she surveyed the damage done to the bridge, likely the result of the Gastown Boys sabotaging their escape route, but she was already attempting to calculate an alternate path. She was lucky, however, since Cheedo was faster.  
"It's risky, but the roof of the Biodome is, well, domed, and the platform for the bridge is still intact, so if we can slide down the roof without falling off, we can land on the platform and climb through one of the windows to get into the Greenhouses. From there, we just proceed with the original plan." Cheedo paused, and frowned at her sister. "You're not saying anything." She said, still frowning. "You don't like it."  
Capable scoffed.  
"No, I don't." She states affirmatively, "The probability of death is ridiculously high, and if we slip this time, there's no way around it ― we're all dead."  
"But we have to try, don't we?" Cheedo implores, her eyes stony with courage, but Capable can tell that she's still nervous. After all, the roof of the Biodome peaks at about one hundred-fifty feet above the Greenhouses, easily making it the tallest structure in the Citadel, and breaking a leg will be the least of their problems if they make a mistake on their journey down.  
Capable swallows thickly, still trying to find a way out of the situation, but she knows that there's no other way.  
"I'll go first." She finally says, and she stares down at the menacing incline down from the Biodome to the Greenhouses, the bridge's platform is minute at this height, and the glass roof the sisters are standing on gives off a foreboding glint in the light of the rising sun, though the sky remains predominantly dark.  
Tentatively, Capable lowered herself into a sitting position, with her legs fully extended her arms crossed over her chest. She stared down at the platform, trying to align her body to it so there was no way she could miss. Then, she looked back at her sister again.  
"Alright." She said, her voice determined and unwavering. "When I say, I want you to give me a hard push, okay?"  
Cheedo nods, looking past Capable and down at the Greenhouses.  
"I will."  
Capable swallows down her fear, and before her mind can overpower her body and force her to back out, she shouts to her sister, "Now!"  
 Cheedo obliges, giving her sister a firm shove, and Capable leans all the way back, until her shoulders skim the glass surface of the Biodome as she plummets down the steep incline, her speed akin to that of a bullet launched from a rifle.  
She turns her face slightly against the glass, and stares into the wide, frightened emerald eyes of her reflection ― her voluminous, red hair in its thick plaits thrashed wildly around her head as the wind tore furiously at it, and Capable is almost afraid that her hair is going to be ripped clean out of her scalp. Maybe she should have taken a leaf out of Toast's book and cut it short like her sister had suggested.  
It's dark outside, but the sun is rising, and as she falls, Capable can discern the pasty, white outlines of the Gastown Boys as they run maniacally around the Citadel, waving their rifles about, and firing off random rounds, baying and beating like wild bloodhounds thirsty for gore.  
Even as the wind whips and lashes with angry tendrils at Capable's ears, she can still hear the frantic screaming of the citizens as they scramble for shelter against the lethal storm of bullets and blood. And what a storm it was . . .  
Capable feels weightless – like gravity no longer exists at this speed and height, and she feels as though she will fall forever, but she risks glancing down between her crossed ankles again as she flies down the side of the Biodome.  
She is struck by a new sense of terror as she discovers that she is much closer to the landing than she'd originally thought.  
Now, it's clear that the momentum she's gained in her fall will kill her if she doesn't find some way to slow down, because now, she's only about thirty feet away from the platform, two feet of solid steel, and her aim is spot-on.  
Capable can't help it – she screams, and the sound is near deafening. A wordless expression of terror and desperation.  
Faintly, she can her Cheedo shrieking, hundreds of feet above her as Capable frantically tries to slow herself down, flailing her arms around, but the rafters are few and far between, and there's nothing for her to get a handhold on.  
But fate seemed to favor Capable, because the redhead finds a fleeting glimmer of hope inside her as she remembers the knife Toast had given her before sprinting off into the battle, like the hero she was, but would never admit to being.  
Capable practically tore off her own clothes in a hysterical search for the knife, and by the time she found it, tucked away in the waistband of her old, battered jeans, the glass surface of the Biodome had transformed underneath her into aged, old wood, and Capable yelped as she felt several splinters force their way into the skin of her back.  
At this point, Capable knew that she couldn't have more than ten feet between herself and the solid, steel platform for the bridge.  
She didn't think – she just acted on pure, primal instinct.  
She hefted the knife in her hand, and slammed the blade as hard as she could into the weathered wood. Upon contact, the knife's blade sunk into the soft, rotting material, all the way to the hilt.  
Unfortunately, Capable hadn't anticipated the force at which her fall would be halted. While the knife had indeed prevented her from slamming into the platform at full-force, it hadn't been a gradual stop.  
Instead, when the wood had swallowed the entire blade of the knife, the entire knife jolted, and, instinctively, Capable tightened her hold on the hilt, but the momentum gathered from her fall ripped her down from the wall and away from her anchor, and she was thrown down onto the steel platform with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs, as well as land quite uncomfortably on her left ankle.  
For several, long moments, Capable lay there on the ground, stunned and gasping for air like a fish out of water. The more she tried to breath, the more aware she became that it hurt to even try.  
Her ribs were likely broken or cracked, and it felt like she might have sprained her wrist from trying to hold onto the knife, but somehow, Capable managed to rise painfully to her feet, even with her tender ankle, and wave reassuringly to Cheedo.  
Even though her sister was over one hundred feet away, Capable could tell that she had her hands up to her face and was pacing back and forth on the distant roof of the Biodome, but once she saw Capable on her feet and waving to her, Cheedo gave a little jump and a relieved yell.  
Capable gestured with her arms for Cheedo to jump and slide down the roof, and wasn't surprised when her sister appeared hesitant, backing slightly away from the drop-off point on the Biodome's roof.  
Capable wasn't giving up however, and she cupped her hands around her mouth to shout up to her sister, knowing it was pointless to hope that the Gastown Boys wouldn't hear them at this point.  
"Jump! I'll catch you!"  
At this altitude, Capable was lucky that the wind didn't carry her voice away, but Cheedo appeared to have heard her, because, although she still appeared apprehensive, she backed up several more steps.  
At first, Capable wasn't sure what her sister was doing, but then it hit her like crowbar to the face.  
Before she could call out to her sister to warn her, Cheedo sprinted at the drop-off of the Biodome and launched herself into the air.  
Even from one hundred feet below, Capable could hear the resounding 'thud' as Cheedo's back hit the glass roof of the Biodome, and watched with a sense of horror, growing like a virus by every moment, as her sister plunged down the side of the Biodome with more speed than Capable had been able to gather during her own trip down to the platform.  
Unlike Capable however, Cheedo screamed all the way down, her horrific wails of terror crescendoing as she continued to plummet down towards the unforgiving, steel platform.  
Capable knew that there was no possible way for her to intercept her sister without hurting herself further, but it was her or Cheedo, and when given the choice between herself and her sisters, Capable would always choose her sisters.  
So, Capable positioned herself at the very edge of the platform, lining herself up where she thought Cheedo would land, and braced herself.  
Cheedo had a very small frame by nature, but given the speed at which she had been travelling down the side of the Biodome, she easily knocked Capable back onto the ground when she plowed into her sister.  
Capable let out an involuntary yelp as the sound of splintering bone was barely heard over her now harsh breathing. If her ribs weren't broken before, they definitely were now.  
Cheedo gasped, and her hands flew up to mouth again in alarm.  
"Capable! I'm so sorry! You're hurt now, and it's my fault! I knew I shouldn't have taken that running start, but I just-" She began to ramble, but Capable was quick to cut her off.  
"It's alright. You're alright." She panted, trying her best to make her now raspy voice sound at least somewhat soothing, which was hard because every time she drew a breath in to speak, it felt as though someone had lit a match inside her ribcage, and she was trying hard not to move for fear that she could potentially damage her lungs further before Maadi could tend to her.  
She chose not to speak too much, beyond what was absolutely necessary. Just another trick she'd learned from Toast about conserving energy, and from the amount of times her sister had been beaten and battered by Joe, sometimes within an inch of her life, Capable was more than ready to trust her.  
Apparently, Cheedo was on the same train of thought, because she quickly hushed Capable and darted over to her side, throwing one of her sister's arms over her shoulders and attempting, with great effort, to haul her sister to her feet.  
"Please, don't force yourself if it hurts to speak." She chided gently, and eventually, with the combined effort of Cheedo's persistent pulling and Capable's determination to get to the Greenhouses, the redhead was able to clamber back to her feet, with a drunken ineptness unbefitting of such an acrobat.  
Together, the two sisters made slow, painful progress towards the one of the many gaping windows that led into the Greenhouses, and when they finally reached their destination, Cheedo risked leaving Capable's side for a moment while she slid one of the large, rectangular panes of glass to the side, just enough for one person to crawl through.  
Of course, Cheedo went first this time.  
"This time, I'll catch you." She said, a slight upturn to the corners of her lips as she shimmied into the small crawlspace.  
As soon as her sister was through, Capable followed close on her heels, only turning back to slide the glass pane back into place.  
When she reached the opening of the tunnel a few seconds later, she crawled out onto a thick, lush carpet of green, and upon closer inspection, Capable discovered that she was laying in a bed of Aconite, quite the handy plant, and this particular bed was suspended only about a foot in the air, still waiting for the plant beds to rotate, so that it could get its turn in the morning sun.  
Cheedo broke her out of her thoughts once more.  
"Capable, come on!" She barked, gesturing for her sister to get up and follow her.  
Capable clambered out of the plant bed, making a point of not spilling the soil or disturbing the Aconite, as it was a highly valued plant in trade and in medicine, and Merlin knows that Maadi would have her head should she disturb any of her prized plants.  
Trailing her sister closely, Capable maintained a slow jog, and though her ribs, ankle, and wrist screamed and pleaded for some respite, she continued to push forward.  
When she caught up with her sister, Cheedo began supporting Capable's weight again, which was helpful in taking some of the weight off of her injured ankle.  
They continued like this until they reached the apple tree in the corner of one of the rooms, and Cheedo had to leave her again so they could both work together in moving the behemoth tree out of the way, pushing the large pot about a foot away from the wall to expose a heavy-duty, steel door.  
As Cheedo turned her back to the expanse of the large room to work on opening the door, Capable had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't as alone as they would prefer to be.  
After all, the rope bridge had been cut down, presumably by the Gastown Boys in an attempt to trap them in the Biodome, and it wouldn't make sense for them to just cut down the bridge and leave without posting at least one of their Warboys nearby just in case they did make it past the obstacle of not having a bridge.  
Just as this thought process entered Capable's mind, a rustling could be heard from behind another bed of plants, and not even a full second after that, the sound of an unknown pair of footsteps rushing at the two girls.  
Already wound up and spooked at the idea of someone watching them, Capable whirled around, whipping out the Magnum given to her by Toast and fired three rounds in rapid succession.  
There was a faint ringing as the empty shells hit the stone floor, followed by the sound of a large body falling to the ground, and Cheedo shrieked in shock as she too spun around to face the bullet-ridden body lying lifelessly on the floor of the Greenhouses.  
Capable let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as she surveyed the bloody face of the unknown man on the floor, blood already starting to gather around him in a shallow, crimson pool.  
"That could have been Dag!" Cheedo squeaked, still shaking from the adrenaline. "Or Toast!"  
"But it wasn't." Capable countered defensively, silently congratulating herself as rounds fired had all been headshots. Toast, had she been there to see it, would have been proud.  
Unfortunately, her victory didn't last for long ― she hadn't anticipated the consequences of the physical effort she'd used to react so quickly and accurately, because the pain in her ribs had escalated to a blinding level of agony, and her breaths were coming in rapid, shallow pants.  
Cheedo finally managed to open the door and motioned for Capable to get inside, but Capable shook her head, still not speaking, but instead motioned to the body lying on the floor, surrounded by a sizable pool of blood.  
Cheedo nodded and came back out of the bunker, propping it open with a small terracotta pot that lay empty and unused nearby.  
Together, they dragged the body of the Gastown Warboy behind a large cluster of thorny plants, growing densely in a large thicket next to the door to the bunker so that if anyone was to come by the area, they wouldn't find the body immediately, even though there was no way to quickly clean the blood.  
At last, Cheedo returned to Capable's side one last time and ushered her into the bunker, closing the door behind them, madly turning the three, heavy, steel wheels to lock it, as well as adding several locking spells for good measure.  
As she heard the comforting sound of all the locks sliding into place, Capable relaxed, and fell back against the wall, allowing herself to slide down it and onto the metal floor.  
Cheedo walked slowly over to her, and Capable could tell that she was still shaking.  
She motioned for her sister to sit, and Cheedo obliged, sinking down to the floor next to her sister, before proceeding to tug at the ties in her red hair, unraveling the thick plaits and gently massaging Capable's scalp with her fingers.  
Capable sighed gratefully, leaning subconsciously into her sister's touch.  
"How long do you think we'll have to wait?" Cheedo asked, absentmindedly playing with Capable's hair, braiding it in several different styles before combing it back out with her fingers and starting all over again.  
Capable, still unwilling to speak, just shrugged her shoulders.  
There was a month's worth of food and water inside the bunker with them, just in case of a natural disaster, or another bombing by the Bullet Farm, if the Citadel was unfortunate enough to get on their bad side ever again.  
Cheedo frowned at Capable when she didn't receive a verbal answer, but she interpreted her sister's shrug as a statement that she really didn't know.  
Eventually, Cheedo finished re-braiding Capable's hair, and snuggled against her sister, since the metal interior of the bunker made the atmosphere quite chilly, but her sister remained stiff — every muscle in her body pulled taught, as though she were expecting someone to barge through the locked door and attack them.  
In an attempt to sooth her, Capable leaned Cheedo's head against her shoulder and stroked her hair, gentle as a mother shooing a fly from her child's face.  
Several more, long minutes passed before Cheedo's rigid form relaxed, and her breathing relaxed and deepened, yet Capable continued to stroke her hair. It was something Angharad used to do after a particularly hard day.  
The movement was relaxing for Capable, and before she had the chance to realize what was happening, she had already drifted off into sleep. 

 

_________________________________________________________

 

When Capable awoke again for the second time in the day, there was the sound of voices and pounding on the other side of the steel door.  
Cheedo was already awake however, and she shot to her feet, racing over to the door and pressing her ear against it to listen. After a few seconds, she glanced back at Capable, eyes wide.  
"It's Furiosa!" She exclaimed.  
Capable furrowed her brow. She was sure that she'd heard more than one voice on the other side of the door, one of them sounded distinctly male, and oddly familiar at that.  
Cheedo must have seen her confused look, so she shouted into the door.  
"Who's there?" She yelled.  
"Silver Fox." Came a voice from the other side, and it was undeniably Furiosa's voice ― Capable could tell by the low timbre of it, as well as the mild accent.  
"Open it. Open the door, Cheedo." Furiosa demanded, laying her fist upon the steel once more, and both Capable and Cheedo could tell by her tone that something was wrong.  
She was using the same tone of voice as she did when she had to deliver bad news in a meeting of the high council of the Citadel. Strong, cool and collected, yet dread offset the stony undertone of her speech.  
Cheedo immediately leapt into action, reciting incantations to remove the spells placed upon the door, and twisting the wheels to retract the bolts.  
At last, the heavy door creaked open, and Capable stood up to stand beside her sister, because from this angle, she couldn't see Furiosa's face, and if she couldn't see her face, then the Imperator would be near impossible to get a read on.  
When she did come into Furiosa's line of sight, Furiosa looked over Cheedo's shoulder at her, and saw her clutching her side with a pained expression on her face. Her brow furrowed, and her profile turned stormy with concern.  
"You're hurt." She stated plainly, but Capable had known Furiosa long enough to be able to discern concern from indifference.  
Capable only nodded, wincing slightly as it was uncomfortable to stand upright for extended periods of time.  
"Dag." She said firmly, wavering on her feet, even as Cheedo rushed to steady her.  
"She's in the infirmary. She's not hurt, she's just with Toast." Furiosa says, and as she does, she moves to step inside the bunker to assist Capable. However, the man with her remains outside and out of sight.    
At the mention of Toast's name, Cheedo turns white as a sheet, but before she can ask any questions, Furiosa begins speaking again.  
"There's blood on the floor outside the door, is it yours? Cheedo's?" Furiosa asks Capable as she scoops her up into her arms, careful not to jar her injuries.  
This time, Cheedo speaks for her, and Capable is grateful.  
"No. Just some Gastown Boy who thought he could sneak up on us. Capable shot him three times. Toast gave her the gun for safety. We put the body behind some of the Venomous Tentacula plants in the corner." She informs Furiosa, and as she states the location of the body, there is a tell-tale sound of rustling near the area she described, followed by a satisfied hum from the man accompanying Furiosa.  
Furiosa seems relieved that neither of them are bleeding to death, but she's still acting as though she has bad news to deliver.  
Cheedo says it first.  
"You said that Dag was in the infirmary with Toast, and you said Dag was fine, but what about Toast?"  
That had to be it. Furiosa's expression darkens, and she tightens her hold on Capable to the point that her grip is almost painful.  
"Toast's been hurt real bad, but she's been through worse. She'll live. In the meantime, however, we need to talk."  
Capable twists around in Furiosa's arms to look at Cheedo, and their eyes lock. Emerald met doe-brown, and they are both wide and terrified.  
Whatever follows in the hours to come will not be pleasant, and the sisters both know it.  
Then, as Furiosa carries Capable out of the bunker, Cheedo following close behind, she sees the unknown man out of the corner of her eye.  
He's currently crouched down beside the Venomous Tentacula plants, and he's pulled out the body of the unnamed Gastown Boy, intently studying the bullet holes in the corpse.  
He hears Furiosa's approach, and turns his head to look at her, and Capable recognizes him immediately, her brain supplying his name almost before her mouth can catch up.  
Cheedo has recognized him as well, because she gasps.  
"Max." Capable rasps, her voice still weak, but she needed to do it ― she needed confirmation that he was really back.  
What her tired, pain-ridden mind interprets as a wry smile crosses his face as he looks at her.  
"Hey, kid." He says, his voice gravelly, "Nice headshots."


End file.
